Taliban warn of bloody spring offensive
Pastor Dale Morgan
Taliban warn of bloody spring offensive *
From correspondents in Kabul
February 05, 2007 06:16am
Article from: Reuters
THE Taliban threatened a spring offensive of thousands of suicide
bombers as the US, doubling its combat troops in Afghanistan, took over
command of the 33,000-strong NATO force today.
As US General Dan McNeill took over the International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF), NATO said a local Taliban leader in a southern
district was killed today in a drive to recapture the key town of Musa
Qala from the rebels.
The Taliban warns this will be "the bloodiest year for foreign troops",
saying they have 2000 suicide bombers ready to go into action when
winter snows melt in a few months.
"We have made 80 per cent preparations to fight American and foreign
forces and we are about to start war," Mullah Hayatullah Khan, a
35-year-old black-bearded guerrilla leader, said at a secret base in the
east yesterday.
Khan said the 2000 are just 40 per cent of fighters preparing to become
suicide bombers, a tactic almost unheard of here until last year as
militants copied Iraq.
"Now there is great enthusiasm for suicide attacks among the Taliban and
these attacks will increase," he said.
Hours after the handover, a suicide bomber attacked a NATO convoy in
Afghanistan's second city and birthplace of the Taliban, Kandahar,
killing himself but no one else, police said.
Gen McNeill takes over ISAF at a pivotal time, analysts said.
Last year was the bloodiest since US-led forces ousted the Taliban
government in 2001. More than 4000 people died, a quarter of them
civilians and 170 foreign soldiers.
"The first three to five months of 2007 are absolutely crucial to the
entire Afghan effort as the mission has been defined - that is, in
bringing security to the southern provinces," Sean Kay, a security
expert and professor of international relations at the Ohio Wesleyan
University, said.
From the beginning, he said, the US had failed to field enough forces
in Afghanistan to prevent the re-emergence of a counter-insurgency and
NATO continued to suffer from this particularly in the south.
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told Germany's
Deutschlandfunk radio the West was not providing enough financial
backing for his country.
"If we want 'project Afghanistan' to succeed and effectively combat
terror, then more money really needs to be invested, and the
international community's obligation in Afghanistan must be seen as a
long-term obligation," he said today.
Outgoing NATO commander, British General David Richards, who saw his
force grow from 9000 as it expanded into the Taliban's southern
heartland during his nine-month command, was upbeat about prospects.
"2006 was a year of ISAF and ANSF (Afghan security forces) success and
Taliban failure," he said. "The Taliban did not achieve a single objective.
"We have proved that NATO can and will defeat the Taliban militarily
and, come the spring, an ISAF offensive - not a Taliban offensive - will
set the conditions to defeat the insurgents again," he said.
The US has effectively doubled its combat troops on the ground by
extending the tours of duty for some soldiers by four months, which will
also provide a rapid reaction force Richards long demanded but was never
given.
President George W. Bush is asking Congress for an extra $US10.6 billion
($13.7 billion) over two years for the Afghan army and police, and
Washington has pressed its allies for more troops and an end to
restrictions on how and where their soldiers can fight.
But so far, only Britain and Poland have committed more men and women
and France is pulling its special forces out.
The Taliban seized Musa Qala in the opium-growing province of Helmand on
Friday, four months after British troops withdrew following a peace deal
with tribal leaders to keep the insurgents out, a deal criticised by the
United States.
NATO forces launched an offensive to retake the town, killing the local
Taliban chief in an air strike today.